Jeff Sessions

Ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions has received an outpouring of praise from conservatives whose focus is public policy. I quoted some of that praise last night. There’s a lot more I could add, but instead I’ll confine myself to this article by Heather Mac Donald. She argues that by firing Sessions, President Trump has put key portions of his agenda at risk: Trump won the presidency by promising to restore »

Two years ago, it would have been hard to find anyone the Left detested more than Senator Jeff Sessions. When Sessions was appointed Attorney General by President Trump, the Democrats outrageously smeared him by alleging, among other things, that he was a racist. That was a warm-up for their contemptible anti-Kavanaugh campaign. It is easy to see why liberals hated Sessions: in the Senate, he was a warrior for conservatism »

Jeff Sessions is out as Attorney General. His ouster was inevitable. He and President Trump have irreconcilable differences about the role of the AG. Sessions believes it’s the Attorney General’s job to enforce federal law; advance the president’s agenda on law enforcement, immigration, civil rights, etc.; and conduct himself ethically at all times. Trump believes it’s the Attorney General’s job to be his wingman. Trump wouldn’t have needed a wingman »

It’s no secret that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ days as Attorney General are numbered. The main questions are: (1) How will his exit be handled and (2) Who will replace him. I have no insight as to the second question. One hears names like Matthew Whitaker (a former U.S. Attorney — and University of Iowa football player — who currently is Sessions’ chief of staff); Alex Azar, the Secretary of »

Rod Rosenstein is under fire for suggesting — maybe seriously, maybe not — that President Trump be wiretapped. Regardless of whether the suggestion was made seriously, Trump should be outraged by it. And he is outraged. . .at Jeff Sessions. Fox News reports: President Trump appeared to blame Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the latest controversy surrounding Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Sunday, saying that Sessions had “hired” Rosenstein to »

CNN reports that George Papadopoulos, convicted of lying to the FBI, is saying through his lawyer that Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions both “apparently supported” his proposal that Trump meet with Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign. According to papers filed by Papadopoulos’ legal team: While some in the room rebuffed George’s offer, Mr. Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr. Sessions who appeared to like the idea and »

Catherine Rampell, a knee-jerk leftist columnist for the Washington Post, writes: “How on earth did Jeff Sessions — Jeff Sessions! — find himself abandoned by the right and embraced by the left?” (Emphasis in the original). Actually, the left isn’t really embracing Sessions (Rampell certainly doesn’t) and conservatives as a group aren’t really abandoning him. Hard-core Trumpians are very unhappy with Sessions, to be sure. And, as Rampell notes, some »

President Trump continued publicly to criticize Jeff Sessions, his Attorney General, yesterday. He tweeted: “Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.” Jeff, this is GREAT, what everyone wants, so look into all of the corruption on the “other side” including deleted Emails, Comey lies & leaks, Mueller conflicts, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr. FISA abuse, Christopher Steele & his phony and corrupt Dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal »

This morning, President Trump attacked his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, once again. He complained that Sessions “never took control of the Justice Department.” Trump fails here to distinguish between taking control of the Russia investigation and taking control of the Justice Department generally. He also fails to recognize that it’s not the Attorney General’s job to protect the president or to promote his political interests — to be the president’s »

The New York Times reports that, at a meeting with Attorney General Sessions in March, President Trump berated Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and told him he should reverse this decision. Sessions refused. The Times also reports that Robert Mueller’s team is investigating this incident, along with Trump’s “public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign.” This “suggests that [Mueller’s] obstruction »

As we noted this morning, Attorney General Sessions has decided against recusing himself from the investigation of Michael Cohen. Allahpundit reports that the decision has produced dueling conspiracy theories. One holds that Sessions will go to bat for Trump and undermine the Cohen investigation, at least insofar as it implicates the president. The other holds that Sessions will use his role in the Cohen investigation as leverage with Trump to »

Soon after the raid of Michael Cohen’s office, home, and hotel room, I suggested that Attorney General Sessions now has a role in Trump-related DOJ investigations. This was my analysis: [Sessions] recused himself from “any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” This covers the payment made by Cohen to Stormy Daniels during the campaign, even though »

The firing of Andrew McCabe has heads exploding among members of the anti-Trump resistance. No surprise there. However, at Lawfare, a resistance site, Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes say they are reserving judgment about the firing, and they caution others to do the same. “It is simply not clear at this stage whether or not the record will support his dismissal,” they say. They are right. It isn’t clear, and »

Pressure is mounting for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate how the FBI and the Justice Department handled interactions with the Trump campaign and the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Sens. Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham say that although the inspector general is doing a good job with his investigation, he faces constraints. Thus, they want a special counsel. To the extent the inspector general »

This week, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ruled against a legal challenge to the border wall. He ruled that the Trump administration has the authority to waive a host of environmental laws and other regulations in order to begin construction. Readers will recall that, during the course of litigation involving “Trump University,” Trump claimed that Curiel was biased against him because Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” Curiel is »

The Washington Post reports that Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump’s “private comments and state of mind” during the period when he issued a series of tweets belittling Attorney General Jeff Sessions. According to the Post, the thrust of Mueller’s inquiry is to determine whether the president’s goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over Mueller’s investigation. If this story is true, »

Sen. Chuck Grassley has blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for criticizing the lenient sentencing legislation Grassley and others are pushing in the Senate. The bill would would slash mandatory minimum sentences for many federal drug crimes and cause the release of many drug felons before they have served their full sentence. Grassley says he’s incensed, and has the right to be, because of what he has done for the Attorney »